In the wake of his vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., revealed to Fox News on Sunday that his wife had received a graphic text message with a video depicting a beheading, and that someone has publicly posted the names and addresses of his family members.

Without exception, it is totally unacceptable to make any kind of violent threat to either a politician or their family members. Anyone who engages in such behavior should be prosecuted to the limit of the law, and it’s very important that the rhetoric employed by all sides in our fractious political debates not incite violence against the other side.

Sen. Cory Gardner has a long track record of dishonesty that necessarily impacts his credibility when he makes claims without supporting evidence. This is a man who has lied brazenly about his own policies like the “federal personhood bill,” the impact of the Affordable Care Act on his and hundreds of thousands of Colorado families, the “paid protesters” allegedly dogging his every step, and most recently caught straight-up lying to constituents calling to inquire about his “undecided” vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

As of this writing, Sen. Cory Gardner has not released the details of either of these two alleged threats. We’re not “dark web” users and we certainly don’t track every message that’s posted to every political message board, but we’ve not seen any personal information on either Sen. Gardner or his family publicly posted–and we wouldn’t link to it if we did.

Assuming this is all on the level, forthcoming details about a criminal investigation into these alleged threats will render questions about Gardner’s truthfulness in this case moot. After all, that’s the standard Republicans want to apply everywhere, isn’t it? If that confirmation never emerges, we’ll have no choice but to add this to the long list of stuff Cory Gardner says that may or may not be true.

Sorry to have to revisit this uncomfortable reality, but somebody’s got to.

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The Fox version will be that it was from Dr. Ford. The not-so-funny thing is that death threats to Dr. Ford are passed off as no big deal because we all know that right-wing fanatics just like to try and intimidate people.

The big assumption here is that this is all on the level. It will probably will give Gardner the excuse he has been searching for to not to meet with his constituents that aren't part of his tribe because they are scary people.

I'm a big fan of Colorado Pols. I like the discussions and I like the different opinions give by all involved. The post should have ended "Period. There’s no “whataboutism” to engage in, no mitigating counterpoints to justify violent threats."

Everything that followed negated or at least tarnished everthing that preceded. Colorado Pols can do better.

Cause the real issue here isn't the blatant partisan fanning political fires so he can get away with dehumanizing shit in the Senate, or the criminal action of threatening someone's life. No, its the news blog stating facts.

It's only honest to point out that Gardner has lied about some rather basic family situations before, including things easily backed up with documentation. Things designed to generate both sympathy and fear.

No-one deserves to be doxxed. No-one deserves threats to their family's welfare.

But we as constituents do deserve at least an independent confirmation when a politician makes such a claim; a simple affirmation from a sheriff or FBI office would work. Too many "we've been fooled before"s.

Now instead of being afraid of Islamic Jihadists, he has to fear women who are carrying purses because they might be sexual assault traumatized suicide bombers. Does it matter that I happen to know women who are 'very fine' people?

Gardner's info is already public. The sinister conspiracy that has published his family's phone and address information includes the eastern Colorado regional phone directory, his own Congressional website, Wikipedia, real estate websites, and the Colorado voter database. The forces of evil, in fact.

It's all out there, all public information. What's more, Cory knows this.

Regarding his other allegation, that someone sent his wife a text message with a video of a beheading, his wife should probably not have so many anti-Muslim facebook friends that are all too ready to spread ISIS and Daesh propaganda videos to try to make their point that "All Muslims are terrorists".

I used to get a beheading or other execution video once a week from some of my more extremist former facebook friends, complete with bogus quotes from the Quran, etc. I'm sure our troll platoon knows exactly what I'm talking about. Our President even shared one of these Daesh videos recently. Yes, that's right, the leader of the free world sent out an ISIS propaganda video. Maybe Trump is Mrs. Gardner's facebook friend.

So color me skeptical – I doubt that this is an actual threatening video sent to Mrs. Gardner by someone she doesn't know. Yes, she probably got a text message and a video of a beheading – probably from someone she knows. Yes, the Gardner's family info is public, and published in a variety of places.

Neither of those facts implies that critics of Gardner’s vote sent it.

If Cory Gardner is actually worried about the "threat", he should report it to the FBI. They'll probably actually investigate his issue. After all, he is a white Republican male, and so his needs are a high priority.

And right on cue, the media breathlessly published this threat along with pictures of the victim. Also in the conservative rag known as the Denver Post, was a story about a female journalist in Bulgaria who was raped, beaten and murdered for reporting on corruption in the Bulgarian government.

Yes, it's all over right wing media. You'd think that they are trying to distract from Kavanaugh's confirmation, or something.

All the stories are sourced back to that one Fox video, with sad piano music audio, Gardner looking pensive, and large scrolling letters saying that his wife received threatening text messages, including a graphic beheading video.

It's more interesting for what it doesn't say:

It does not say if Mrs. Gardner knows the sender. Since it went to her personal cell phone, that's likely.

It does not say what the threats were. Was it just "We'll remember in November?" because Cory has gotten plenty of those on his office phones. Did the threats mention Gardner's Kavanaugh confirmation vote? It doesn't say. Was the threat even related to the Kavanaugh vote, or to another issue Gardner votes on? He is on the foreign relations committee.

It doesn't say if the Gardners have reported the "threats" to a police or Federal agency.

It doesn't say the source of the video. Is it one of the same ISIS / Daesh videos that have been circulated by many right wing sites in the last year? Nobody else circulates beheading videos that I'm aware of (except Donald Trump, of course). And only terrorists and terrorist sympathizers masquerading as right wing nuts circulate them.

Gardner is being very cagey on this one. Reporters need to ask him specific questions about the "threat".